%A Fornara,Ferdinando
%A Lai,Amanda Elizabeth
%A Bonaiuto,Marino
%A Pazzaglia,Francesca
%D 2019
%J Frontiers in Psychology
%C
%F
%G English
%K place attachment,Residential satisfaction,Spatial self-efficacy,Spatial anxiety,wayfinding,elderly population,Adaptation strategy,Docility hypothesis
%Q
%R 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00856
%W
%L
%N 856
%M
%P
%7
%8 2019-April-24
%9 Original Research
%#
%! Place Attachment as Elderly Adaptive Strategy
%*
%<
%T Residential Place Attachment as an Adaptive Strategy for Coping With the Reduction of Spatial Abilities in Old Age
%U https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00856
%V 10
%0 JOURNAL ARTICLE
%@ 1664-1078
%X This study intended to test whether attachment to one’s own residential place at neighborhood level could represent a coping response for the elderly (consistently with the “docility hypothesis;” Lawton, 1982), when dealing with the demands of unfamiliar environments, in order to balance their reduction of spatial abilities. Specifically, a sequential path was tested, in which neighborhood attachment was expected to play a buffer role between lowered spatial competence and neighborhood satisfaction. The participants (N = 264), senior citizens (over 65-year-old), responded to a questionnaire including the measures of spatial self-efficacy, spatial anxiety, attitude toward wayfinding, residential attachment and residential satisfaction. Results from the mediation analysis showed that a lower perceived spatial self-efficacy is associated to a higher spatial anxiety, and both promote a more negative attitude toward wayfinding tasks in non-familiar places. This leads to a higher attachment to one’s own neighborhood, which in turn predicts a higher residential satisfaction. Thus, the “closure” response of becoming more attached to their residential place may be an adaptive strategy of the elderly for compensating the Person-Environment (P-E) mis-fit (Lawton and Nahemow, 1973) when they feel unable (or less able) to cope with the demands of unfamiliar environments.